"You're a billion pieces, building and unbuilding, stacking and unstacking, hinging and unhinging, pushing, pulling, leaning, standing, falling, all to create something bigger than you."
This book was kindly sent to me for review, via Netgalley, by SOURCEBOOKS Fire. Many thanks to both!
Name: When the Light Went Out
Author: Bridget Morrissey
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Pages: 320
Publisher: SOURCEBOOKS Fire
Published: June 1st 2019
Marley Bricket was the light of their friendship group, she kept everybody on their toes with their annual scavenger hunt called the Adventure, her stories and she made small town life bearable. Everybody knew they, Marley and her friends. When the Adventure comes around, they all get more than they bargained for. A gun that wasn't supposed to be loaded. An accidental shooting. Marley Bricket, dead.
Five years later, her friends all get together after her memorial, the first one with them all together, for one last adventure. But will finishing what Marley started years ago raise more questions than answers and make everyone fall back into the spiral of grief and loss?
I wanted to love this book. I really really did.
And I didn't hate it.
The writing was great, I really enjoyed the alternating point of view between the day that Marley died, and the days of the Adventure. It flowed well. But the present day point of view almost made parts of the throwback chapters redundant, it answered your questions too early I feel, which potentially made the book drag along a little. The ending was suspected. It made it hard to read and follow the flow. But the author really does have a lovely way with words, there were so many sections of this book I found myself taking note of and highlighting along the way because they encapsulate the process of grief so well.
Grief is a really difficult topic to write about, especially grief from bereavement. How do you put loss in to words? Morrissey does it very well and the sections that spoke on grief were poignant and raw. They sat with you through the story and you can really feel what the main characters are expressing.
That being said however, one reason this book isn't rated higher is the main characters. Ollie and Nick were the youngest two of the group and the two that were there when Marley died, Nick pulled the trigger and Ollie watched as Marley was killed by a gun that wasn't supposed to be loaded. That type of trauma is bound to mess anyone up, especially eleven year olds. But something about Ollie didn't sit well with me, I found her character reckless for the sake of being reckless and her unhealthy obsession with Marley was kind of unsettling in places. Particularly when she dresses as Marley to go to her memorial every year. That in particular made me feel a little weird. Ollie's voice is the narrator in this book, she's followed by the spirit of Marley, this presence of Marley was nice but I felt like it could have been developed further.
I wanted a bit more from that aspect of the book.
Now looking at Nick, he was a good character. But in terms of him and Ollie and their budding romance, it didn't seem like it was something that was for the best. It seemed too predictable and too cliche for the book, and in my opinion, Ollie forgave him way too fast for not talking to her in five years.
Something that was unprecedented from this book were the conversations about mental health and whether Marley knew the gun was loaded when she told Nick to pull the trigger. It was a conversation that fit well into the story and made it even more harrowing than before.
Overall Rating: 3.5 stars, this book didn't fully hit the mark with me, but it was also a good read. I wouldn't call it a favourite but I don't hate it.
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